Say goodbye to tedious shopping lists and aggravatingly long lines at the supermarket’s checkout counter: Smartli, an Israeli-based startup, has developed an automatic grocery shopping system that uses sensors to track which items are missing from your fridge, generates a personalized shopping list, and ensures that these items are delivered directly to your door at your preferred time.

According to an online survey conducted by Harris Interactive, 15 percent of US adults have shopped for groceries online, and an additional 19 percent say they don’t currently, but plan to in the future. Additionally, the survey reveals that one of the main impediments to online grocery shopping is the difficulty of creating a shopping list without seeing the items before your eyes. It is within this context that Smartli enters the arena.

Smartli is the brainchild of serial entrepreneur Iri Zohar, and is the application of the Internet-of-Things (a digital future in which objects are identified by and connected to the internet) in the world of grocery shopping. “I really like the advanced technology aspect of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) and I really like the consumer value… doing something which adds value.” He says.

A smart fridge that creates its own shopping list

Smartli uses IoT sensors, which “take an inventory” of the current groceries in your fridge. Then there is a “very advanced data mining engine, which looks at your consumption and figures out what you’re going to need without you having to do any work… It will combine what you have and what you need and come up with this week’s shopping list.” All that is required is for the user to approve the automatically generated list. The result, simply put by Zohar, “someone comes to your house and gives you everything you need.”

Moreover, Zohar is careful to mention that “we give you control, but it’s your choice how much control you want.” By this he means that the Smartli user is at liberty to modify the automated shopping list, by accessing it through his smartphone or computer.

But Zohar believes tools like Smartli won’t remove the human interaction aspect completely: “People who buy online, usually still buy many things offline… and I think that’s still going to be the case.” He is not worried about the “trillion dollar industry” of in-store grocery shopping.

Taking on the US market

Rather, Zohar envisions a future in which the supermarket will become a “more fun and engaging experience.” Customers will still go to the supermarket for the “stuff that people really like to touch and see and choose… the fresh fruits and vegetables, meat and bread,” but they will be able to avoid “carrying the heavy boxes” through technologies like Smartli.

Smartli recently received $277,000 from Michael Kattan (a member of the prominent banking family Safra), which accounts for the bulk of their funding. Other funds come directly from Zohar and other members of the company.

The company is currently conducting pilot projects in Israel and the US and their main focus remains in the US, “a convenient lab to test out technologies,” according to Zohar. Smartli plans to launch a more robust pilot in the US in 2014, but Zohar would not reveal any details.

NoCamels, Israeli Innovation News

Over $20 Million Raised At Saban-Chaired FIDF Gala

More than 1,000 attended the FIDF Western Region Gala, which featured musician Lionel Richie, David Foster and Friends, and a $150,000 donation from TV star Simon Cowell.

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 (L-R) Rabbi Yechiel and Joelle Eckstein, Haim and Cheryl Saban, Dr. Rebecka and Dr. Arie Belldegrun / Michelle Mivzari

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Over $20 million was raised at the annual Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF) Western Region Gala yesterday, Tuesday, October 22, 2013. More than 1,000 FIDF supporters and dignitaries from the United States and Israel gathered to express their support for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). FIDF National Board Member and major supporter, Haim Saban, and his wife, Cheryl, served as chairs of the star-studded FIDF Gala that took place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, CA.

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   Simon Cowell and Haim Saban  /Michelle Mivzari

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Notable donations made at the event included $4.5 million from Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, Founder and President of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, $3.5 million from Vicki and Ron Simms of Simms Commercial Development, $2.3 million from Cheryl and Haim Saban, $2 million from Younes Nazarian, Co-Founder of Qualcomm, and his wife Soraya, and $1 million from Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle. Simon Cowell of American Idol and X-Factor also attended the event and announced a donation of $150,000 to benefit the IDF soldiers. The funds raised at the Gala will go towards wellbeing and educational programs for IDF soldiers.

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Cheryl Saban with Ben Silverman and Jennifer Cuoco / Orly Halevy

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The evening began with a cocktail reception, followed by dinner and a program, emceed by FIDF National and Western Region President, Julian Josephson, and featured remarkable performances by David Foster and Friends. Attendees were enthralled by the surprise performance of five-time Grammy Award winner, Lionel Richie. Among the many participants at the Gala were Avi Arad, CEO of Marvel Studios and Founder of Arad Productions Inc., and his wife Joyce, Avi Lerner, Co-Chairman of NuImage, brothers Maurice and Paul Marciano of Guess Jeans, Ben Silverman, Founder and CEO of Electus, and his wife Jennifer Cuoco, Casey Wasserman of Wasserman Media Group, and Eli Tene, Co-Founder, Co-Managing Director and Principal of Peak Corporate Network and a Co-Founder and former Co-Chairman of the Israeli American Council, and his wife Dafna.

The FIDF national and local leadership present at the event included Nily Falic, FIDF National Chairman, Julian Josephson, FIDF National and Western Region President, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Yitzhak (Jerry) Gershon, FIDF National Director and CEO, Leo David, FIDF Western Region Founder and Chairman, and his wife Ruth.

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Leo David, FIDF Western Region Founder and Chairman, and Sheriff Lee Baca / Orly Halevy

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A very touching moment at the event occurred when Lone Soldiers, brothers Tamir Lerner, a combat soldier in the elite IDF unit Golani, and Adee Lerner, an IDF paratrooper, surprised their parents, Ettie and Shmulik Lerner, on stage. This emotional family reunion, which brought the crowd to tears, was made possible by the FIDF Lone Soldiers Program, which brought the brothers from Israel to Los Angeles so they could surprise their parents. The FIDF Lone Soldiers Program supports soldiers who have decided to leave their countries of origin and serve in the IDF. The program provides financial and social support, retreats, scholarships, and flights to visit their families abroad.

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Vicki Simms with Nily Falic, FIDF National Chairman /Michelle Mivzari

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“The Jewish and Israeli community in LA showed its support and love yesterday for the soldiers of Israel,” said Saban. “The event connects this warm community with IDF soldiers, and it is our opportunity to say thank you to the soldiers who defend the State of Israel.”

About Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF):

FIDF was established in 1981 by a group of Holocaust survivors as a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing and supporting educational, social, cultural, and recreational programs and facilities for the heroic men and women of the IDF. Today, FIDF has more than 120,000 loyal supporters, and 15 regional offices throughout the U.S. and Panama.

Avi Lerner Wants To Make Some Of Hollywood’s Top Female Film Stars “Expendable”

A female version of an all action movie is the latest project that Lerner is working on.

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Cameron Diaz,  Jamie Lee Curtis and Milla Jovovich / Getty

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The recent success of the Expendables action movies, starring some of the industry’s aging male action superstars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert De Niro, Mickey Rourke, Bruce Willis and the master of all action heroes Sylvester Stallone has prompted Lerner to produce a female version which has so far earned the working title of “The ExpendaBelles”.

With the male equivalent, the Expendables onto its second follow-up, and  with veteran Hollywood tough guys almost queuing up to take part, while film lovers from audiences all over the world during up to watch them, Lerner knows that he has hit yet another winning formula. A formula that he wants to take on to the next stage- an all female version.

To shoot the “ExpendaBelles” Lerner is reportedly going after some of the Hollywood’s leading female talent, and once again the Hollywood rumor mill is working flat-out. Rumors are flying with names such as Cameron Diaz, Milla Jovovich, Jamie Lee Curtis  already being mentioned  as strong starters , and even Oscar winners Helen Mirren and  Meryl Streep being added to the list of possibilities.

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Helen Mirren and  Meryl Streep/ Getty

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What is for sure is the movie is due to be sorted Bulgaria, early  next year, with the all-female screenwriting team of  Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, who wrote “Legally Blonde” already working on the screenplay. Lerner has stated that he hopes to appoint a female director to work with him on the movie, although no names have been mentioned to date.

All that Lerner is admitting in the meantime is that he sees the film being based around an all female group of possibly “seven or eight women mercenaries.”  Avi Lerner did not dismiss the future possibility that the Expendables and the ExpendaBelles might even star together some kind of ultimate action movie, with the only prerequisite being that all members of the cast be at least forty years old.

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Avi Lerner (Center)  / Getty

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Avi Lerner was born and raised in Haifa, Israel. After serving in the Paratrooper Brigade, and taking part in the Six Day War of 1967, Lerner began his career in the film industry, working in Tel Aviv. After a few years, Avi moved to South Africa, where he was involved in the production of several locally based films, as well as building   a chain of movie theaters.

Lerner wanted to try his luck in Hollywood, meaning that the next step in his globetrotting adventures saw him there, accepting an offer to take up the role as President of Global Pictures, an independent production/distribution company,

After he had gotten the lie of LaLa Land Lerner left Global to found his own production companies, Nu Image and Millennium Films in partnership with Danny Dimbort and Trevor Short. Both companies found themselves a niche in the industry, producing action films in the genre of Rambo, which he has now taken a step further by becoming an equal opportunity employer in the film industry.

Mark Pincus’s Taking A Back Seat Seems To Be Working As Zynga Cuts Their Losses In The Third Quarter

After stepping down in July from the role of CEO, Pincus can only watch and wonder how his replacement appears to be leading the company into more tranquil waters.

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Pincus, still the major shareholder in the online gaming company that he founded,  must be experiencing some mixed feelings as Don Mattrick,  the CEO that came in to replace him shows some initial signs of turning the company round.

With Mattrick at the helm visiting you had a more encouraging quarter in comparison to some of the last few that Pincus managed when he was still running the company. Don Mattrick has succeeded in cutting back on losses during the third quarter, but income for the company has continued to fall while statistics show that considerably less people are playing Zynga games than they did.

The last few months of being among the most difficult for Mark Pincus in his career as an online entrepreneur, not made any easier by the fact that during that time, Candy Crush now reported to be the hottest online game of all time, is breaking records in terms of revenue, pulling in not far from one million dollars every day from its online followers in every corner of the world. Candy Crush’s developers, UK-based King in the latter stages of preparing an IPO.

However, all is not doom and gloom at Zynga, whose shares jumped by twelve percent after news of their less disappointing than expected results broke.

Shareholders obviously feel that their arrival of Don Mattrick from Microsoft which he was in charge of their Xbox division has had a calming influence on the day-to-day running of the San Francisco Company.

Another piece of significant news for Zynga is that Mattrick has done a serious piece of headhunting, pulling in a former colleague, Clive Downie to take up the role of chief operating officer at the Zynga. Downie will take up his position almost immediately, after apparently being attracted to the challenge he will obviously face at Zynga, and will be leaving his current employees, mobile game maker DeNA. Downie and Mattrick have a long-term working relationship which they formed when they worked together at Electronic Arts Inc. another video game maker

Zynga has made a major breakthrough by enticing Downie to join the company as he comes with tremendous expertise in mobile games. Zynga has suffered badly under Mark Pincus, with industry experts point to the fact that his failure to lead the company forward into a transition to mobile, which has virtually eliminated the desktop computer from the gamers’ philosophy. Zynga’s most popular video games, particularly “FarmVille” and “Mafia Wars,” were designed and produced principally to be played on desktop and laptop computers, which are slowly making their way into history especially among the under twenty-five’s.

Most industry analysts agreed that failing to recognize the strength of the switch to mobile is what cost Mark Pincus his role as CEO as well as creating some massive losses at Zynga. Losses which caused company stock to drop as much as 60 percent from the opening price of $10 on offer when the company went public almost two years ago.

During Pincus’s last few days in the post as CEO , Zynga instigated a major cost-cutting exercise, by cutting his payroll dramatically, laying off more than five hundred  employees, or 18 percent of its payroll.

Industry analysts expect that the effects of the cost-cutting should be enough to trim Zynga’s losses for the fourth quarter due to end in December. Estimates are that the losses could range between $21 million to $31 million, a major improvement on the $49 million that the Zynga lost in the same quarter in 2012.

Despite the fact that Zynga reported a loss of $68,000 in the three quarters up to the end of September, their shares gained 44 cents to $3.98 in extended trading Thursday, making for a spectacular improvement from the losses of $52.7 million, equivalent to seven cents per share, for the corresponding period time last year.

For the period Zynga’s income dropped by 36 percent to $202.6 million, although it was around $13 million more than had been expected.  What must be waiting for Mark Pincus as well as the management team at the Zynga is that the average number of people playing Zynga’s games regularly during the third quarter was reported to be in the region of thirty million, half of what it was for the same time last year. For the same quarter, industry estimates point that around one hundred million people played the Candy crush on their Smartphones and pads.

Mark Pincus was born and raised in Chicago . After graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania Mark Pincus spent a number of years learning the ropes of the venture capital and financial services industries, working for two years as a financial analyst in New York with Lazard Freres & Co., after which he spent four years in exotic Hong Kong, filling a Vice President‘s post at Asian Capital Partners for two years.

After completing his stint in Hong Kong, Pincus decided that the time was right to gain his masters degree, which he from Harvard Business School.

After leaving Harvard Pincus was appointed manager of corporate development at Tele-Communications, Inc., which have since become part of AT&T Cable, later joining. Columbia Capital as Vice President, where he had his first encounter with the fast growing world of hi –tech as head of the department that handled investments in new media and software startups.

Mark’s time at Columbia Capital obviously gave him a taste for the opportunities available in the industry and just a year later, in 1995; he launched his first startup, a push technology service under the title of Freeloader, Inc., which he succeeded in selling after just seven months picking up a cool $38 million.

It took Pincus just a few months to establish his next hi-tech venture, Support.com, which he succeeded in building into one of the Internet’s leading software providers for the service and support industry, taking the company public in 2002.

Indian Bank SIDBI Seeks Israeli Investments In water technology, agriculture, communications and renewable energy

The Small Industries Development Bank of India is seeking investments in Israel and the bank intends to establish a joint investment fund with Kaenaat.

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Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)

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The Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) is seeking investments in Israel – the bank intends to establish a joint investment fund with Kaenaat, a company that deals with investments in emerging markets. Kaenat chairman, Yariv Cohen, told “Globes” that the new fund will focus its operations on assisting small and medium Israeli companies that are looking to enter the Indian market, or to expand their activity in India, in Indian sectors that have been marked as having the potential to encourage growth. The collaboration agreement between the bank and the investment company was signed recently, after representatives from the bank made several trips to Israel.

“This is the first time that SIDBI is seeking an international partner with whom to invest, and we are glad that the bank chose Israel. We are talking about a world-leading, top-tier financing and development body that has far-reaching influence on the development of Indian industry,” says Cohen. Among the instruments that the bank is using to support small and medium businesses are investments, loans, risk insurance, and managerial and strategic support for companies following the investment. Until now, the bank has focused its activity within India, and has supported 10,000 local businesses, in part through 4 investment funds.